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Help:Referencing
Ideally every sentence in an article should contain at least one morsel of information related to the subject of the article. At the end of each such sentence you should put either a URL, a supporting quote from the books or, at least, the name of the book from which you got the information to write the sentence. This is known as the source. To instead add quotes directly to a page for flavour (as per the layout guide) visit . How to reference a fact #Write out your fact. This could be in the form of a sentence or an entry in an infobox, etc. #Put in the tags following the word, clause or sentence to be referenced. Where a reference is placed next to punctuation it should always go ''after that punctuation.'' #In the middle of the ref tags write down the evidence that supports the assertion made (eg: write evidence here). #If it doesn't already exist at the end of the article write out a Notes and references heading as per the Layout Guide. #Under the Notes and references heading put . This should only be done once per page. #Preview and check for errors, if there are none save, otherwise refer back to this guide again or ask someone for help. Formatting a reference The novels and novellas written by Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont are the primary sources of the wiki. As they will be referenced a lot it is important to have a standard format. Below are listed several methods of ideal formatting. The full-style quote is the preferred method, except for epigraphs. For a list of standard book and edition abbreviations see the Manual of Style. Basic This is the minimum standard (only put the name of the book in link brackets as the book page contains publishing information) Full Ideally, add type of edition and page number as well (due to variations in pagination, page numbers only make sense if you specify the edition as well). Alternative templates This method uses the template. Single paragraph extract If you want to add just a single line/paragraph of the text directly. It uses the template. Multi-paragraph excerpt If you want to add more than one line/paragraph of the text directly. It uses the template that will insert a table in the references section. This next example nests a dialogue template inside the excerpt template. What is a suitable reference? *For in-universe articles: Books by and interviews with authors. Author's websites. Not publishers websites. *For out-of-universe articles: Amazon.com, recognised websites like Wertzone. Not forum posts. Adding notes Notes are general supporting evidence for the article. Want to add an excerpt from the books or an interview, but don't know where to put it? Put it in the . Some example notes are displayed at the bottom of this page. Additional information on how to use notes is available on its template page. The code for the examples on this page: ;Code Notes and references }} Notes on referencing Referencing the same source multiple times You might want to cite the same source multiple times on the same page. You can do this the standard way, but it starts to get messy after a while and results in repetition. Shown here is a method to identify each citation with a name and then how to call on just that name thereafter. There is currently no standardised form for what to use as the name of the reference. Suspicious statements If you spot something that seems untrue or too important a statement to leave unreferenced, you can use the Citation needed template to call attention to it. To do this add to the end of the suspect assertion. This will add a warning, like so. It will also add the page to the hidden category: Pages needing citation. Further features are detailed on the CN template's page. Compacting large reference sections If the Notes and references section is starting to get too big, about 20-30 unique citations, use the column width function of the Reflist template. is a commonly used parameter. This will restrict the maximum width of each reference and dynamically spread them across however many columns your monitor has space for. Adding to existing, referenced articles If additional information or a re-writing of an article invalidates the existing reference, please ensure you also re-write/re-position the references using details of your own copy of the source. Notes and references }} Category:Help